NORTHAMPTON — Animal rights activists protested in front of the Provisions wine store at Thornes Marketplace Sunday afternoon, calling for the retailer to pull foie gras, a French goose liver dish some believe is made inhumanely, off the store’s shelves.
Protesters from the animal rights groups For Animals Inc. and Western Mass Animal Rights Activists held signs reading “may our hearts overcome our habits,” and others bearing pictures of geese being forcibly fed with a metal pipe which read “birds are force-fed and tortured for foie gras,” as they encouraged passersby to sign a petition ending the sale of the goose liver delicacy.
“It’s just an incredibly cruel practice. They start when they’re very young — the birds are maybe a couple months old, and for three or four months, typically twice a day, they’re force-fed until their liver becomes eight times the size it’s meant to be and they’re kept in horrible conditions,” Denise Tetrault, of For Animals said. “I grew up on a little farm, and I was sensitive to animals ever since I was a little kid … they can’t walk into a shelter and ask for help the way humans can.”
Provisions Co-Owner Bruce McAmis, in an email to the Gazette, explained that the foie gras sold at Provisions is humanely sourced from La Belle Farms and Hudson Valley Farms.
“Provisions is strongly committed to sourcing products with the highest possible quality and animal welfare standards,” he wrote. “We have sourced the foie gras we sell from two high quality producers in the northeast for many years, La Belle Farms and Hudson Valley Farms. We believe that they produce an excellent product that meets those standards.”
At Sunday’s protest, the activists handed out literature on the process of making the dish and encouraged those walking by to sign the petition with the aim of presenting it to Provisions management. One pamphlet published by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) showed images of ducks and geese raised for foie gras bearing punctured necks from the feeding tube.
Protester Elizabeth Nett, a former chair of Greenfield’s Agricultural Commission, explained that she stepped away from the commission earlier this year to pursue animal rights advocacy, a passion she has held since she was young.
In the 40 minutes protesters spent collecting signatures, Nett said they managed to gather close to 140.
“We’ve gone so low. I don’t know how it happened, but we’ve gone so low that we can’t even acknowledge the way we treat these animals. People don’t even want to look at these things, because they know deep in their hearts, deep in their minds, that these babies should not be killed,” Nett said. “They should stay with their mothers, they should go into the ponds, live their life the way nature intended them to live.”
In his response to the Gazette, McAmis also sent a link to an online post from the meat supplier Bella Bella Gourmet Foods, which is supplied by La Belle Farms, arguing that while some farms practice inhumane goose or duck “gavage,” or the overfeeding process, La Belle Farms uses plastic tubes and minimizes the birds’ discomfort.
The food processing company also explained that the birds are unconscious at the time of slaughter, and that additional policy is put in place to ensure that while the ducks are not “lining up to be fed,” they do not appear to be particularly stressed either.
“While most other farms in the world still use metal tubes to feed their ducks, La Belle has recently switched to a custom-made flexible plastic version … according to Bob, when the feeder feels the duck’s esophagus, if there’s any food remaining, she’ll skip that feeding,” Bella Bella Gourmet wrote. “While the ducks are technically force-fed, there is a level of built-in anatomical control so that the ducks can’t take in any more food than they can physically handle. That’s more respect than most fast-food chains show for their human customers.”
The online post also directly responds to foie gras protestors, arguing that the treatment of ducks and geese in the making of foie gras is no less humane than most American farms’ treatment of chickens.
“If you are against the confinement, slaughter, and eating of all animals, then that’s a different argument to be had at a different time. But to single out foie as the worst of the worst is misguided at best, and downright manipulative at worst,” Bella Bella Gourmet wrote. “Just as there are good eggs and bad eggs, good beef and bad beef, good chicken and bad chicken, so there is good foie and bad foie. We are especially lucky, because we happen to live in a country where all of the foie produced is good foie.”
